Originally published in 1820 by John Sutherland, Edinburgh in a booklet linked to Sir Walter Scott’s novel The Heart of Midlothian. Reconstructed by the RSCDS in 2021 to mark the 250th anniversary of Sir Walter Scott’s birth.
Mid-Lothian
Once known as Edinburghshire, Mid-Lothian lies between East Lothian and West Lothian
and stretches for about twelve miles along the south shore of the Firth of Forth
and faces across the water to the Kingdom of Fife.
Now relatively small, the Lothians at one time reached as far south as the River Tweed
and were part of the ancient kingdom of Northumbria.
In the 9th century Kenneth I, known as MacAlpin, invaded the Lowlands
and is said to have burned Dunbar and Melrose.
In the next century the Scottish King Indulph wrested the original Edinburgh,
which the Dalriadic Scots called Dunedin,
from the Northumbrians.
In 1018, after the battle of Carham, Malcolm II added all of the Lowlands north of the Tweed
to his kingdom.
From “Scotland Dances”, by Eugenia (Jeannie) Callander Sharp
(Used by permission.)